Author Archives: G.S. Griffin

It’s That Time of the Myth

Posted on by under Politics

As with any other topic, there exists a broad range of attitudes in human societies toward menstruation. Ancient cultures like the Cherokee thought menstrual blood was imbued with a woman’s strength and spirit, a source of power that could be harnessed to defeat enemies (Blood Politics, Sturm), and the Greeks may have used it for medicine and fertilizer. Menstrual blood was thought by some societies to have magical healing properties, so it was consumed or used in ointments. Yoruk women made menstruation a spiritual experience. But the attitudes have typically not been positive. Joan Chrisler summarizes the myths in Psychology of Women Quarterly:

Drops of menstrual blood upon the ground or in a river kill plants and animals; wells run dry if a menstruating woman draws water from them; men become ill if they are touched by or use any objects that have been touched by a menstruating woman; beer turns sour if a menstruating woman enters a brewery; and beer, wine, vinegar, milk, and jam go bad if touched by a menstruating woman. These beliefs have been reported in various places in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas, and they are related to contemporary beliefs that women should not bathe, swim, wash their hair, do heavy housework, play sports, tend houseplants, eat or drink certain things, or engage in sexual intercourse during the menses.

The Romans thought a woman on her period could stop storms, dull swords at a glance, or use her blood to cure ailments, but also kill crops and bees, drive dogs mad, and cause people and animals to miscarry (Natural History, Pliny the Younger). Monthly bleeding was seen by some cultures as the female body ridding itself of disease, impurities, excess emotions, or demons. Eskimo men thought contact with women on their periods would spoil their next hunting outing by making them visible to prey, and Bukka women could not go in the sea because they might poison fish. Europeans in the 13th century thought that menstruation produced fumes that would “poison the eyes of children lying in their cradles by a glance” and that a child conceived while a woman was on her period would have “epilepsy and leprosy because menstrual matter is extremely venomous.” In the 1920s and for decades later, pseudoscience claimed “menotoxins” secreted by women killed plants and caused colic and child asthma. In Britain as late as 1982, menstruating women were instructed to avoid killing pigs, milking cows, and making butter so the food wouldn’t go bad (Everyday Discourses of Menstruation, Newton). Plus, dough wouldn’t rise.

Today some Nepali force menstruating women to sleep in sheds and stay out of school so they won’t infect others or anger the gods (similar traditions persist in rural Africa and Brazil), and some Indians still believe magical menstrual blood is an aphrodisiac if consumed. In some parts of Ghana and among the Ulithi the cycle is celebrated and women receive gifts. A sect of Hindus in India celebrate the yearly menstruation of the goddess Kamakhya Devi with their huge Ambuwasi Puja festival, yet Indian women are typically barred from entering places of worship while “impure.”

In the United States, of course, the idea that women shouldn’t hold high political positions because of their cycle exists and has for a long time. In 1970, Dr. Edgar Berman infamously explained to U.S. Congresswoman Patsy Mink that a woman should not be president — or perhaps even a CEO — due to “raging hormonal imbalances.” Just imagine a “menopausal woman president who had to make the decision of the Bay of Pigs” or the head of a bank “making a loan under these raging hormonal influences.” Yes, because the Bay of Pigs was such a success. In 2009, conservative pundit G. Gordon Liddy said of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor: ‘‘Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then!’’ Hillary Clinton’s presidential runs in 2008 and 2016 drew plenty of the same from conservatives. Dimwits preached the tired inanity that a period could lead to nuclear war and holocaust. From male commentators on Fox News to female CEOs on Facebook, it’s consistently made clear that many believe menstruation disqualifies women from gaining the same power as men. We still live in a nation where sexism is a problem.

This stigma, that a woman who menstruates is too dangerous and unstable to handle major political affairs, exists alongside a larger stigma that positions menstruation as something shameful and horrid. This goes beyond mere evolutionary aversions to bodily fluids, to being “grossed out” by blood, urine, feces, or semen. Those attitudes exist, but do not always carry the same degree of associated stigma in a society (further, the fact some societies have more positive views of menstruation and others more negative views reveals the power of social factors as well). As Emily Jupp at the Independent wrote:

It’s interesting that so much embarrassment, awkwardness, and shame surround a natural bodily function experienced by half the population at some point in their lives. We don’t hide toilet paper away, yet some women still get flustered if a tampon drops out of their handbag, or we might buy a floral-patterned tin to hide our sanitary pads. If you spotted some toilet roll tucked away and covered in a little bespoke baggy in someone’s loo, wouldn’t you find it faintly ridiculous? And yet that’s what we do all the time with sanitary products, as though the evidence that we have periods is something to be ashamed of.

The mark of shame is pervasive, from the word “period” being censored on television to hiding away the “feminine hygiene” section in stores (which, as Chrisler writes, “itself suggests that there is something dirty about women”) to Kotex marketing “a new ‘crinkle-free’ wrapper, so that other women in a public restroom will not know that someone is unwrapping one of their products.” Experiments show people sit further away from a woman they suspect is on her period and judge her as less competent and likable. Research also shows women expect this, which demotivates them. Men and women alike are often highly embarrassed about this topic or anything that approaches it. Women commonly report that particularly great shame accompanies menarche.

Again, this is not to say other, related things don’t cause shame and embarrassment — the bloke who inadvertently gets an erection in class or has his condoms discovered by his mother for example. Addressing the stigma of menstruation doesn’t posit others don’t exist. It is important to ask how shame comes about and is perpetuated, and what might be done to alleviate it if that would be beneficial to society. These questions should be asked concerning many topics related to biology and sex, but this article only addresses a particular one.

While acknowledging the role that biological aversion to anything that exits the human body plays in the creation of stigma, we must consider the social factors as well. Different social factors will produce different attitudes in different societies. A more general piece would examine the absolute hysteria over human anatomy, nudity, sexual intercourse, sexual orientation and gender identity, and so on that still grips much of America, but looking at how social factors affect a specific issue like menstruation serves as a nice exemplar of the whole.

I see three major ideologies that affect American cultural attitudes on menstruation: patriarchy, religion, and conservatism. Whether these effects are positive or negative I will mostly leave to the reader for the sake of time, even though my position is clear and my last paragraph suggests action.

The ways in which patriarchy, religion, and conservatism encourage or perpetuate discomfort or disgust toward menstruation are obvious.

Consider patriarchy, the domination of societal power by men. What has historically been used to justify such a system? All the talk of women being inferior — inferior intelligence, reason, or courage, say — but also the fact that the ability to carry children or the menstrual irritability that would destroy a nation should a woman be president or even vote mean we’d all be better off if women were consigned to the home. In other words, biology dictates what women should or shouldn’t be allowed to do. This is blatant discrimination and patriarchal tyranny, of course, but the point is menstruation has been used in history as an excuse to not allow women to do this or that, and still is. They were (are) considered unclean and handicapped by periods. So if menstruation serves a function in a male-dominated society — if it’s a means of preserving male power by holding back the other sex — it is quite natural that men would hold and perpetuate negative attitudes towards it (even subconsciously), such as disgust. It’s highly useful.

This is on top of the fact that because men don’t experience menstruation it easily becomes taboo in a male-dominated society. It shouldn’t be discussed. They say man fears what he doesn’t understand, but I have always found this a poor choice of words. A better phrasing: Man is disgusted by anything outside the norm of his own experience. What he doesn’t experience is abnormal by default. Sadly, many women, particularly religious and conservative women, have been indoctrinated by his vain worldview, taught to view their own biology as shameful and horrid. Well, a female-dominated society would look quite different, wouldn’t it? Imagine if our society had been historically run by women and men were the powerless, marginalized sex. Don’t you suppose attitudes toward menstruation would be less taboo, more openly discussed, more normal? If you think it might, you can therefore see what patriarchy does.

Chrysler writes:

It is powerful members of a society who determine what the social (or physical) norms are and what defines people as deviant. In the case of stigma applied to women’s bodies, the norms are androcentric [male-centered]. Stigmatization legitimates the status hierarchy because it allows the nonstigmatized to justify the status quo and their place in it. Stigmatizing others also enhances the self-esteem and personal empowerment of the stigmatizers because it promotes favorable social comparisons with outgroups [marginalized women].

Powerful people can also protect themselves from the types of threats [to male power] by distancing themselves from stigmatized individuals, bodily substances, and biological processes; by objectifying the stigmatized groups and thinking of them less as individuals and more as objects to be derided, admired, or manipulated; by discriminating against stigmatized individuals in social and employment settings in order to minimize their contact with those individuals; and by setting and enforcing cultural rules that require individuals to control, eliminate, or hide their stigmatized marks from public view. After all, as Steinem wrote, if men could menstruate, the menses would be a badge of honor, not a mark of stigma.

As for religion, that one is almost too obvious to get into. Religious texts written by primitive male-run desert tribes that billions of people still hold dear and take far too seriously of course describe menstruation in superstitious and primitive ways. For example women on their periods are “unclean,” so unclean that anything they even touch is unclean, at least according to the bible. There are many examples in Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and other holy books of the horrors of this natural human body function. All unsurprising considering the unscientific, ignorant men who wrote them and the barbaric times in which they were penned.

So here you have God or Allah or whomever passing out laws that treat menstruation with disgust, as something that makes you a pariah. That’s going to influence societies and people, and has for thousands of years. It’s going to hurt and shame a great many women. Again, imagine if it were women who were the priests throughout history and made up the gods. You can imagine things might be a bit different in how female biology is discussed in holy books, how the church treated women, and so on.

On top of all this is the hysteria over sex itself, which on its own is a dark, dirty secret in the eyes of the ultra-religious. It’s taboo, can’t be talked about, certainly can’t be on ads and in shows, books, films, or even art. So anything related to menstruation is out by default. I don’t think there’s any question that less religious people have been the first to be more open and public about sexuality and sexual matters as the human race progresses. Considering that’s something the ultra-religious consistently complain about, it seems a fairly uncontroversial opinion.

Similarly, there’s conservatism, which by definition is resistance to new ideas and change (the term “conservatism” has been explicitly used to justify holding women back in U.S. history, I might add). So you have entrenched patriarchy and unyielding religious indoctrination since birth, and the conservative attitude, whether consciously or subconsciously, is to maintain the status quo. Conservatism by definition will resist new, more open attitudes to sex and menstruation and related topics. If you don’t, you’re more liberal on the issue, again by definition.

Political and social conservatism are very closely interwoven with religion (which conservatives take pride in) and patriarchy (which doesn’t get as much enthusiasm these days but is still an issue among some on the Right — check out the ultraconservative, sexist website Return of Kings, but not after eating). Many conservatives are deeply uncomfortable with and quite closed to public discussions of sex, so again menstruation is basically out automatically.

It won’t be controversial to say that the people who create period-related content like this cover of the Village Voice are usually not conservatives, nor is it a shock to suggest the people who react with the most consternation likely are conservatives. Liberals and feminists, like nonreligious people, tend to be much more open about matters of sex and anatomy (whether or not you agree that’s wise is your business). Because of this aversion to open discussion of sex and female biology, misinformation and disgust are allowed to breed like viruses in a petri dish. For a final round of role playing, imagine if there were only liberals in the U.S. Do you not suppose a reaction to the Village Voice cover — deemed indecent, vile, vomit-inducing, and so on by conservative critics — would be a bit quieter? Would it even be a thing? Well, the reaction itself is going to perpetuate ideas of female biology being so nasty it’s unmentionable. It will teach others to react in the same way. I think it’s clear where the loudest reactions come from and how the next generation is taught that menstruation is shameful and appalling. That’s conservatism perpetuating the hysteria.

This is not to say all religious persons and conservatives are horrified by periods, believe they shouldn’t ever be mentioned publicly, think they disqualify women from gaining the same power as men, etc. But I think we all understand reality too well to think these ideological factors don’t impact attitudes toward menstruation.

If we see women experiencing shame over their own biology and men perpetuating that shame and holding women back as undesirable, as any decent person would, we need to normalize menstruation, and that begins with open discussion and thoughtful listening to the experiences of women and unyielding assaults upon the ignorance and misogyny of men. We need to question the prevailing attitudes. That’s the only way stigma eases, and when you think about it there are many modern examples. The stigma of pornography use is easing, as is the masturbation stigma. It’s become easier, perhaps, to come out as gay or trans as humanity has progressed a bit. This doesn’t mean bodily functions aren’t still gross to most humans, but it does mean fewer humans are experiencing shame because of our innate sexual nature and biology. We have to likewise ask ourselves: Why should women be embarrassed concerning periods? Why should men make them feel embarrassed or handicapped? Why should it be this way? Why not build a society where the stigma doesn’t exist?

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Beyoncé and the Black Panthers

Posted on by under Race Relations

Beyoncé and her dancers, clad in black leather and black berets, their hair Afroed, reminded the world as it watched Super Bowl 50 of the Black Panthers, a radical leftist organization birthed in the 1960s by white American oppression.

Beyoncé and her dancers stood together on the football field and raised their fists in the traditional radical symbol “power to the people,” a sign of both solidarity with allies pushing for positive social change and defiance against oppressors.

After the performance, a group of dancers raised their fists once more. One unfolded a piece of paper inscribed with “Justice 4 Mario Woods.” Woods, reportedly armed with a knife, was shot to death in a heated confrontation with both black and white San Francisco police in December. Super Bowl 50 was held in San Francisco.

The performers also posed for a similar photo hailing Black Power off the field after the show.

The halftime performance came one day after Beyoncé’s music video “Formation” came out, which drew fire from angry whites for its “anti-police” message. In the video, Beyoncé sits atop a sinking police cruiser, a black child dances in front of a line of policemen in riot gear, who eventually raise their hands, graffiti on a wall demands police “Stop Shooting Us,” etc. “Formation” was one of the songs performed during the Super Bowl.

The Black Panther Party, founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, was largely inspired by the ideology of Islamic minister Malcolm X (Beyoncé and her women formed an “X” at one point, likely a reference to him). Malcolm X summed up his view on violence, in accordance with his faith and belief in self-defense, when he said in 1963, “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”

Formed in 1966, the year after Malcolm X’s assassination, the Panthers aimed to promote self-defense against police abuse and white vigilantes, to unify workers against capitalist exploitation, to embrace black pride, to make African Americans politically powerful and economically self-sufficient, to end illiteracy, hunger, and poverty in black communities, and to fight and die at any time for freedom.

Marxist ideas of transferring power to the common people–giving black people the economic, social, and political power to control their own destinies–attracted many. So did the idea of revolution, violent conflict, as a way to achieve basic human rights.

It was, after all, a time of virulent racism (it should be obvious to all that blacks faced far more severe and deadly oppression than the American colonists who rose up in revolution against the British).

White employers refused to pay blacks the same wages as whites, or hire them for more skilled, higher wage positions; white banks refused to provide home loans to blacks; school districts gerrymandered attendance zones to keep black and white schools distinct; white businesses fled from budding areas of black commerce; white producers charged black stores more for goods.

White residents fled from black neighbors; white real estate agents steered blacks away from nicer homes in white areas; white city councils, city planners, and developers refused to invest and build in black areas; white voters rejected tax increases that would benefit black schools and neighborhoods; white landlords refused to properly maintain property inhabited by black families.

White policemen beat and abused blacks suspected of committing crimes against whites, but ignored black on black crime in the ghettos; white judges and juries handed black criminals longer prison sentences and more frequent executions; white terrorists shot, hung, beat, mutilated and bombed innocent African Americans to keep them out of stores, schools, public facilities, neighborhoods, voting booths, and political positions.

Peaceful protesters exercising First Amendment rights were attacked and killed by police and vigilantes alike. The Black Panther Party and its message of self-protection appealed to those who saw Dr. King’s pacifism as inadequate (while respecting and upholding Dr. King’s belief in socialism).

So the Panthers made use of their Second Amendment rights: they armed themselves against a government that failed–for centuries–to protect their human rights, and in fact frequently worked to destroy said rights. They decided to defend themselves, especially against abusive policemen, whom they called “pigs.”

The Panthers used (what else?) the Declaration of Independence to justify revolution against the State. In their Ten-Point Program, which outlined their demands (the first being “We Want Freedom”), the Panthers reminded blacks and whites alike:

…governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government…

…when a long train of abuses and usurpations…evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Yet the Party was more than organizing for self-defense and revolution. Nationally, the Party was renowned for organizing dozens of community programs such as free clothing, shoes, food, education, legal representation, and health clinics for communities of color. They worked with welfare organizations, churches, and local businesses (some white) to ease black poverty.

They organized black history classes, including some that introduced whites to the horrors of slavery and oppression; this glimpse of true history left many whites terrified, tearful, and angry enough to join the fight for civil rights. They held rallies, marches, and strikes to push for black equality.

And although Panther women faced frequent sexual pressure and advances from the men, and sexism in general, the Party aimed to liberate women and promote equality—it was “empowering,” a “source of pride” and “strength,” in the words of one female Black Panther leader.

By the early 1980s, the Black Panther Party was destroyed. From the outset, the U.S. government and local authorities worked to undermine and eliminate it.

The FBI, which has a long history of working to destroy leftist and civil rights organizations (the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, etc.), installed spies, helped assassinate Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Chicago, forged letters to create disunity, illegally imprisoned activists, destroyed property like food meant for distribution to the poor, and attempted to discredit the Party through propaganda. The FBI authorized municipal police to terrorize members at home, at meetings, and at protests.

When Bobby Seale was arrested for protesting at the Democratic National Convention in 1968, he was not allowed to choose his own lawyer—he was gagged and bound in the courtroom. Many Party leaders were forced to flee the United States to avoid death or imprisonment.

The Panthers’ deadly clashes with police also lost them support from more moderate black civil rights groups and more affluent blacks, and of course progress in civil rights legislation also convinced some their promised revolution was no longer necessary.

(See Reynaldo Anderson, On the Ground: The Black Panther Party in Communities Across America; Gaidi Faraj, Unearthing the Underground: A Study of Radical Activism in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army; Paul Alkebulan, Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party.)

Today, with the rise of more radical movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, Beyoncé’s homage to the Panthers should come as no surprise. It is a time of immense anger toward the State and white-dominant society.

Research shows nearly all whites hold subconscious anti-black biases, and a solid majority consciously believe racist myths about blacks (whites in simulations are much quicker to shoot both armed and unarmed blacks). Black job applicants with identical resumes as white applicants are still less likely to be called back for an interview, and blacks are less likely to be offered a quality home loan than whites with the same (sometimes worse) qualifications and income levels. Likewise, whites receive better medical care at the same facilities than blacks with identical diagnoses and medical histories.

Blacks are more likely to receive longer prison sentences and the death penalty than whites who commit the same crimes. They are more likely to be pulled over and searched while driving lawfully than whites driving lawfully. Unarmed Americans killed by police are consistently twice as likely to be black than white.

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The Philosophy of Morality

Posted on by under Religion

Having explored how human morality — ideas and feelings of right and wrong — does not need a god to explain it, instead being the product of our evolutionary history and our unique societies, it is time to address a common criticism of godless morality.

It goes something like this: If morality is purely subjective, if right and wrong do not exist “beyond” or “outside” what humans determine they should be (in other words, are not set by a god), how can one justify telling someone else she has behaved in an immoral way? If a man says rape or murder is morally right, how can another justify saying he is wrong? With no empirical standard of what is ethical, ethics are simply opinions, and why would one human’s opinion have more weight or importance than another’s? Relative morality is meaningless morality.

We can first deal with the obvious point that even if a god-decreed empirical standard exists there is no way for us to know precisely what it is. We’d have to first prove (prove) which god is real and which gods are fictional, then get clarification directly from this being on issues not specifically mentioned in its holy text. So the same question of how one justifies telling another she is wrong haunts the theory of Objective Morality as well. Scriptures are often vague, open to interpretation, so even among those who believe in Objective Morality, and the same God, morals inevitably vary. Conservative and liberal Christians may have different views on right and wrong — on what God’s standards are — based on the exact same holy book! Some Christians firmly believe contraception is a sin. Others disagree. There are debates over what God really thinks about premarital sex and certain sex acts, masturbation, the age of consent, alcohol, and drugs, as well as issues ancient writers couldn’t imagine, from gun control to genetic engineering. While the range of acceptable ethical standards may be more narrow when everyone agrees that Yahweh set Objective Moral laws, individual morals are still very much opinion-based, a matter of human perspective, because such laws are often not comprehensive, clear, or even present in the scriptures. Religious persons somehow think faith-based ethics are on firmer ground and more logical than those based on the works of human philosophers or voluntarily chosen principles like doing no harm, when one cannot prove the faith is true, nor prove its Objective Morality is true, nor even fully know what that Objective Morality would entail. Shifting human values may be problematic, but so are unprovable, unknowable divine ones.

More importantly, the common criticism is an incomplete thought, failing to comprehend the premise.

The premise is indeed that morality is opinion-based. Though rooted in evolution, the society and family one happens to be born into, life experiences, psychological states, and so on, right and wrong are ultimately matters of opinion. The answer to this question (“If morals are human opinions, how can one justify condemning another person’s actions?”) is then obvious: no justification is needed at all. Opinions do not need this kind of justification.

Suppose I were to ask, “What is your favorite color?” and then demanded you justify it using an empirical standard, a standard beyond yourself, beyond humanity — beyond human opinion. The very idea is absurd. The concept of a “favorite color” does not exist in any form beyond our individual selves (do you think that it too was decided by God for us humans to follow?). What sense does it make to demand that the person who expresses a favorite color also “backs it up” using some mythological benchmark not set by humans? Opinions of the prettiest color rest on their own laurels — the subjective standards of man, not the objective ones of a deity.

In the precise same way, no external justification is needed to say, “What the rapist did was wrong, even if he didn’t think so.” If one states that another person behaved in an immoral way, that is a subjective viewpoint like one’s favorite color; there is no requirement that one justifies saying so using anything other than human thought and reason. Opinions, moral or otherwise, do not need to be measured or validated against standards “beyond” or “outside” humanity.

The religious may believe these things are different, because naturally an Objective Favorite Color does not exist but an Objective Morality does. That’s as impossible to prove as the deity it’s based on, but think that if you wish. Regardless, the statement “You have to justify judging others if you don’t believe in an empirical standard” makes no sense. It’s specifically because one doesn’t believe an empirical standard exists that one doesn’t need to justify judging others! If you don’t believe in an Objective Favorite Color, you do not have to justify your favorite color using that standard. If you don’t believe in Objective Morality, you do not have to justify why you think someone did something immoral using that standard. You can stick to human standards — both individual and collective, which you can use to justify your beliefs (for example, my morality — and that of many others — emphasizes minimizing physical and psychological harm, therefore rape is wrong, therefore the rapist has done wrong).

So if no justification is needed to state your opinion that a murderer has done wrong, if the very act of asking for justification is illogical because it ignores the obvious implication of the premise, what of the rest of the common criticism? If it’s all opinion, doesn’t one have to say all opinions are equal, if we look at things objectively? Any notion that Opinion A has more weight or importance than Opinion B is bunk. Is morality then meaningless?

It is true, if we view all this objectively, that Opinion A and Opinion B, whatever they may be, are indeed “equal,” “equally valid or important,” or however else you’d like to phrase it. How else could it be? If there is no deity, no Final Say, to give the thumbs up or down to moral opinions, that is simply reality. (Without an Objective Favorite Color, “My favorite is blue” and “My favorite is green” are both valid.) Now, this generally makes us uncomfortable or sick because it means that though I think the opinions and ethics of the child molester are detestable and inferior to my own there is no deity to say I am right and he is wrong, so our opinions are equally valid. But that’s not the end to the story, because while opinions are equal their real-world consequences are not.

Some moral views lead to death, physical and psychological pain, misery, terror, and so on. Others do not, or have opposite effects. These are real experiences. So while mere opinions, in and of themselves, can be said to be “equal,” we cannot say the same regarding their actual or possible effects. Some moral views are more physically and psychologically harmful than others. This is quite different than favorite colors.

See, the common criticism has it backwards. A lack of an empirical standard makes opinions meaningful, not meaningless. It’s where an empirical standard exists that opinions don’t matter. Consider an actual empirical standard: the truth (yes, atheists and liberals believe in absolute truth). Either George Washington existed or he didn’t. I say he did, another says he didn’t…one of us is incorrect. When it comes to the truth, opinions don’t matter. The objective truth is independent of our opinion. Morality is different: it is not independent of our opinions (it’s opinion-based, after all), and thus our moral views matter a great deal because some will cause more harm than others. If God exists and determined that killing a girl found to not be a virgin on her wedding night was right, your opinion about killing non-virgin girls on their wedding nights would be meaningless. It wouldn’t matter if you thought this wrong — you’d be incorrect. But if there is no deity-designed standard “beyond” humanity, your opinion is meaningful and matters a great deal because awful real-world consequences can be avoided if your moral opinion is heard and embraced.

“Well, so what?” one might ask. “Why is harm itself wrong? Who says we should consider death and pain ‘wrong’ rather than, say, life and happiness?”

The person who asks this has lost sight of linguistic meaning. What exactly does “wrong” (or “bad” or “evil” or “immoral”) mean? Well, it essentially means undesirable. To say something is wrong is to say it’s disagreeable, intolerable, unacceptable, something that should not be done, something to be avoided.

Why is harm wrong? Harm is wrong because it’s undesirable. To put it another way, asking “Why is harm wrong?” is really asking “Why is harm undesirable?” And the answer is “Because it hurts” — because we are conscious, organic creatures capable of experiencing death, pain, humiliation, grief, and so on. Now, this does not mean everyone will agree on what constitutes harm! That is the human story, after all: a vicious battle of opinions on what is harmful and what isn’t (and thus what’s wrong and what isn’t), with some ideas growing popular even while change awaits on the horizon. We even argue over whether causing harm to prevent a greater harm is right (desirable), as with killing one to save many or going to war to stop the evils of others. But the idea that harm is undesirable is universal, because each human creature has something they would not like to happen to them.

This includes those who bring pain and suffering to others or themselves. The rapist may not wish to be raped; the mullah who supports female genital mutilation may not wish to be castrated; the suicidal person may not wish to be tortured in a basement first; the masochist, who enjoys experiencing pain, may not wish to die; the serial killer may not wish to be left at the altar; the sadist, who loves inflicting pain, may not wish to be paralyzed from the neck down.

As soon as you accept the premise that each person has some form of harm he or she wants to avoid, you’ve accepted that harm is wrong — by definition. Even if our views on what is harmful (or how harmful something is) vary widely, we have a shared foundation built on the actual meanings of the terms we’re using. From this starting point, folk from all sides of an issue present their arguments (for instance, “It is wrong — undesirable — for a starving man to steal because that harms the property owner” vs. “It is right — desirable — for a starving man to steal because if he doesn’t he will die”). Though we individuals do not always do so, we often decide that what’s wrong (undesirable) for us is also wrong for others, because we evolved a capacity for empathy and are often smart enough to know a group living under rules that apply to all can actually protect and benefit us by creating a more stable, cooperative, caring society). The disagreements may be savage, but an important premise of harm being wrong because it’s undesirable is universally accepted. Things couldn’t be any other way unless you simply wanted to throw out the meaning of words.

The path forward from there is clear, despite the insistence of some that actions need external justification even if moral opinions do not. This is merely another go at an obviously flawed idea. If no external, objective standard is needed to justify moral views, why would you need one to justify actions based on those moral views? You wouldn’t. We justify our actions based on the subjective, human ideas that are our moral views, and then try to popularize our ideas because we think we know best. It’s simply what human creatures do, whether our ideas are in the minority or majority opinion, whether they lead to death and pain or peace and kindness.

Understandably, some may see no sense in individuals objecting to or regulating the ethics of others. If there’s no higher basis for whose idea of morality is true or better, the next question is oftentimes “How is it then logical to tell someone they’re wrong and force them to live by your moral code?” In a word, self-interest. If you think your morality is better, it’s not an illogical decision to try to convince someone else or even force him to abide by it through law. Even if you know there is no external basis to make your morality objectively “better” or “truer,” it’s still a reasonable action for you to take because you see it as better or truer, and know your efforts can work — minds get changed, so do laws, so do societies. For example, I know there’s no external, objective basis for police murder being wrong, but because I personally think it is, I act. I try to change minds, support law changes. The act is a logical step after opinion formation. If I act, I may help win a world I want, one with fewer senseless killings of unarmed people. If you would prefer a world with your moral code adopted, and know acting can bring that about, it almost seems more logical to act than to not act — even if you know all moral views are equivalent — to bring about that different world! “Logical” just means “makes sense,” after all. So each individual tries to shape the world in a certain way they personally like — a rational thing to do, given individual motives, even while knowing no one is “right.” Acting in self-interest is rarely considered irrational.

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On Reverse Racism

Posted on by under Race Relations

How do we who consider ourselves antiracists define racism? This would seem to be the natural starting point when dissecting the notion of reverse racism (defined as racism against whites).

I view racism as a virus with many strains: conscious beliefs in special flaws in black people (i.e., the white myth of a characteristic black laziness used to explain disproportionate black poverty and welfare use); subconscious biases of the same nature; individual oppression; systemic oppression; or a simple dislike of black folk. I have described and do describe these beliefs, attitudes, and actions as racism (and destroying them as the work of the antiracist), and I’m sure many of you have done the same.

Some of my fellow Leftists will object. “You are confusing ‘racism’ with ‘prejudice’ and ‘discrimination,’ good sir.” And this strikes at the core of the matter, which is of course semantics.

I normally wouldn’t craft an entire piece on an argument birthed by varying definitions, but when the linguistic bloodshed reaches such a level that it begins to inhibit the antiracist cause, well, it becomes difficult to resist.

A liberal stance is that reverse racism does not exist because, as Tessa Thompson’s character in Dear White People put it,

Black people can’t be racist. Prejudiced yes, but not racist. Racism describes a system of disadvantage based on race. Black people can’t be racist because we don’t stand to benefit from such a system.

Franchesca Ramsey, whom I encourage you all to follow on social media, responded to the idea that mistreatment like bullying and racial slurs should be labeled “racism” by saying, “Those are examples of racial prejudice, not racism. That’s because racism isn’t just about individuals. It’s about institutional power.” Indeed, she defines racism as “individual feelings about people of color…supported by institutional power” — so for example, it would be bad enough if someone were to be seen as more dangerous, more aggressive, and more deviant just based on skin color, which Ramsey defines as racial prejudice, but when an institution like the criminal justice system uses its power to lock up this person for a longer prison term than someone of a “less threatening race” who committed precisely the same crime, that is racism (and a massive societal problem blacks face today and have for a long time, long before the War on Drugs).

Zeba Blay of the Huffington Post wrote:

Some people simplify racism as one group not liking another, and think “racist” and “prejudiced” are interchangeable. But racism is a concept that operates on both an individual and institutional level. At its core, racism is a system in which a dominant race benefits off the oppression of others — whether they want to or not. We don’t live in a society where every racial group has equal power, status, and opportunity.

In their definition of racism, Ramsey and Blay at least mention the working relationship between individual and institution, acknowledging the necessity of the former (“racism isn’t just about individuals”; it “operates on both an individual and institutional level”). Some don’t bother, which can really make things confusing. Here I’m reminded of what the great Black Panther Stokely Carmichael said: “If a white man wants to lynch me, that’s his problem. If he’s got the power to lynch me, that’s my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it’s a question of power.” S.E. Smith recently went so far as to say, “Racism is structural, not personal.”

In sum, they are saying only prejudice (defined as the belief in stereotypes about groups) and discrimination (acting on your prejudice in a harmful way) are strictly personal. Racism cannot be strictly personal. It doesn’t exist unless prejudice and discrimination are institutionalized: supported by government, the education system, the criminal justice system, corporate power, and so on. It’s privilege combined with power. If this is the meaning, reverse racism indeed does not exist.

This writer takes a slightly different tack. I see institutionalism as one of the five major strains of racism mentioned above, not the only strain. I much prefer how the Oxford Dictionary defines racism: “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior” or “The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race.” Here prejudice and discrimination fall under the umbrella of racism, rather than standing apart.

I don’t see my preferred definition as “more accurate” than what Ramsey and others use, though I do selfishly like that it encompasses my five strains. I also don’t cling to it because it is most common (the Marxist and the atheist are used to small herds) or for tradition’s sake (I say that while not forgetting Carmichael and others who long ago formulated their definition).

However, I believe viewing institutionalism as one of the symptoms rather than the whole disease does more for the cause of racial justice.

All respect to my comrades, I have been amazed that “reverse racism does not exist” is a hill many Leftists seem prepared to die on. Look at this article thus far. It has taken me this long just to sort through the opposing definitions! Surely such time and energy in discourse, whether in person or online, might be better devoted to actually proving that blacks receive longer sentences than whites for the same crimes, including hate crimes, which many whites still think is total nonsense, than arguing that no, a black kid beating up a white kid while spouting anti-white slurs is only prejudice and discrimination, not racism, because it has no connection to historical and modern institutional power. Surely we have bigger giants to slay.

It’s not just being too lazy to argue the point, nor saying the point has no value. We should simply seriously consider what is most productive when engaging with white folk who, as Cornel West would put it, are still “sleepwalking.” How do we best reach people? Many whites who hear “reverse racism does not exist” will immediately close off their minds to anything further you have to say. Granted, the mere words “race” or “racism” can have the same effect, but the denial of reverse racism is a line in the sand for the more reasonable and sensible whites — the reachable ones. Besides, justice won’t allow us to abandon our proselytizing concerning racism, but reverse racism is, I think, a different story. Now, using a broader definition of racism and thus acknowledging reverse racism exists isn’t suggested here to protect white feelings, allow shifty debate partners to distract or diminish from the injustices people of color constantly face (the usual strategy), or yield an inch to “the enemy.” What it does is quickly lay common ground down which the semi of reason can come barreling.

By my definition of racism, I can readily acknowledge reverse racism exists. Not the strain of systemic oppression, naturally, but rather others — the black American who distrusts or dislikes whites, prefers not to hire whites, commits a hate crime against a white person, believes all white people are innately racist or hateful, and so on. Given our brutal racial history and our modern problems, it would be quite remarkable if these types of attitudes and actions were beyond the realm of the possible. Other definitions call them prejudice and discrimination, mine labels them racism — both to incorporate what I see racism as and to create a starting point for a more effective conversation that might more easily change white thought.

With that short acknowledgement I have lost no ground. My ideological opponent and I have simply accepted the popular (and in no way inferior or inaccurate) definition of racism, and I can raise without delay the two points regarding reverse racism that matter most: origin and scale.

Scale addresses the deflection (“White people are discriminated against, too!”). We do not need to redefine racism to obliterate the deflection. Yes, no matter your race and no matter what race you’re thinking about or interacting with, harmful stereotypes and hateful acts are wrong, horrific, and deserve condemnation. But the racism of all strains that blacks face is an infinitely more colossal problem than that which whites face. It isn’t white names on resumes that are 50% less likely to get a call back for an interview. It’s black names. It isn’t white kids who are 2-3 times more likely to be suspended or expelled from school compared to others who commit the same offenses. It’s black kids. And on and on into every arena of life. Yet we live in a society where whites are so shockingly divorced from the facts that they can think discrimination against them is worse than against people of color at the precise same time the FBI finds only 10.5% of all hate crimes in 2015 were directed against whites (a typical percentage), even though the U.S. is still nearly 70% white! White supremacist and rightwing extremist violence is more frequent than that of Islam, the Left, and black nationalists combined. 23 of the 900 hate crimes that occurred in the 10 days following the election were against Trump supporters, mostly white, yet we somehow pretend this is just as egregious as all the rest combined (directed against Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, blacks, gays).

White delusions are quite astounding. It’s not that abuse against whites isn’t wrong and must cease, it’s that no knowledgeable or thinking person would use reverse racism to diminish the importance of dismantling anti-black racism and its effects, past and present. The difference of scale is huge.

Origin addresses where race hatred comes from. I don’t pretend to know the perspectives of black folk or the black experience, but I do not believe for a moment that anti-black sentiment and anti-white sentiment come from the same place.

As someone who writes often about racism, I occasionally have friends who send me videos of black people beating up or harassing white people — as if I was unaware such things were even possible. When that happens, I watch the video or read the article and say — earnestly — that such things are awful and as equally wrong as white folk beating up black folk. Then I speak frankly: hatred and violence do not always come from the same place (in fact, looking at history, they rarely do). We must not pretend hatred and violence against one group cannot be a reaction to hatred and violence against another.

I much suspect that anti-white racism is largely a reaction to anti-black racism. Racism against blacks largely stems from the idea that there’s something wrong with black people — laziness, aggression, deviancy, lower intellect, immorality — which racist whites use to explain black poverty, crime, broken families, lower test scores, etc., rather than bothering to look at history and economics. This blame inspires some whites to do horrific things. Racism against whites is largely an angry backlash against these racists myths, modern mistreatment at the hands of individuals and institutions, and perhaps the past oppression that dug this social pit African Americans are still trying to climb their way out of. This anger can inspire some blacks to do awful things.

These are not the only factors, and you are correct if you think racism from either side feeds racism on the other. But the point is that anyone who takes American history seriously or has an ounce of respect for social researchers who collect and analyze data on today’s world would conclude racist sentiment does not come from the same place, the same history and motives and feelings and thoughts. If we accept reality, it’s easy to imagine that if anti-white racism vanished tomorrow anti-black racism would continue to thrive, yet if anti-black racism vanished anti-white racism would be severely diminished. That is why I personally focus on ending anti-black racism.

I wonder how many conversations did not get to these important things due to semantics.

Arguing reverse racism doesn’t exist because of definitional differences is like spending your days searching for the perfect battlefield while two giants destroy your land.

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Yes, Liberals and Atheists Believe in Absolute Truth

Posted on by under Religion

As America enters what has been called a “post-truth” age, when “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief,” certain sectors of the populace — the liberals, the atheists, the youths — are being attacked for allegedly denying “absolute truth” in favor of “relativistic truth” (or “objective” for “subjective” truth).

Take for example an article from the conservative Federalist right after the election entitled “The Left Decries Our Post-Truth Society While Pushing the Ideas That Fuel It.” Naturally, no actual evidence is offered that the Left abandons facts for emotions more readily than the Right, but the sentiment is clear. The author asks the liberal media criticizing the witless Trump voters who believe most anything despite not a shred of evidence, from Obama being a secret Muslim to 3-5 million illegal votes being cast in the 2016 election:

Where have you been all these years as America has abandoned truth for relativism especially in higher learning (and now in all levels of education)? Haven’t you been paying attention as we have put emotion over facts in just about every sphere of society? Our nation has been abandoning objective truth for more than a century! What did you think would result?

This sudden outcry against post-truth reminds me of the vapors so many had when they heard the Trump “Grab her by the p—” tape. Suddenly, people who had been telling us there’s no right and wrong—no objective values or morality by which we can judge others—switched gears and became Puritans in a flash…

My response to those to those now worried about this “post-truth society” is “You reap what you sow.” This abandonment of objective facts for emotion is the inevitable result of our culture’s unrelenting commitment to moral relativism.

Likewise, one can’t help but notice no evidence is offered to support the notion that Americans of the modern era are more likely to accept emotion-based appeals over fact-based appeals compared to those of over a century ago. But more important to our purposes here is that the writer isn’t actually speaking of absolute truth (what is fact?), she is speaking of absolute morality (what is ethically right?).

The same conflation was made by the Christian satire site Babylon Bee, which ran the article “Culture in Which All Truth is Relative Suddenly Concerned About Fake News,” which featured a fictional interviewee:

American society, while typically rejecting concepts like absolute truth and objective moral standards, is suddenly showing grave concern for the rise of fabricated news stories…

One Oregon man, who rejects the idea that humanity can even be sure the universe exists in any meaningful sense, was nonetheless disturbed by the idea that websites could publish completely false information, for anyone in the world to read.

“It’s just absolutely wrong, in my opinion,” said the man who doesn’t believe in absolute ideals of right and wrong at all. “What if someone reads the information and gets like, deceived? That just seems totally wicked.”

“It just doesn’t seem right that they can publish stuff that’s just blatantly not true,” added the man, who also noted his firm belief that everyone has the right to define their own version of truth.

All this is one of the most poorly thought-out straw man arguments posited by the religious Right.

Most liberals and nonreligious persons believe in absolute truth (just another word for “reality”) just as most conservatives and religious people do. If we define relative truth in its most meaningful form — belief that reality is a matter of opinion — while putting aside other definitions — that we cannot know with certainty what reality is (are we in a computer simulation?), that different cultures in different ages have varying views on what reality is (where does the sun go at night?), and other ideas folks like Nietzsche mean when they say things like “There are no eternal facts as there are no absolute truths” — one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who takes the idea seriously.

As mortals, we try to understand the nature of reality, we believe different things concerning it, and we bicker among ourselves with enthusiasm on the subject. But very few human beings think different opinions equate to different literal realities. Liberals do not suppose that because they believe Obama is not Muslim and some conservatives do that both parties side with equal “truths.” Rather, one is correct and the other incorrect. Likewise, the notion that there both is no god and that there is a god is not something atheists suggest just because some disbelieve and some believe. They cannot both be true, and no one supposes they are. People are generally the same: they believe they know the absolute truth and others don’t. They don’t think reality is a matter of opinion.

However, when conservatives and religious fundamentalists speak of absolute truth this is usually and clearly code for something else entirely. As you see from the articles above, they often mean “absolute morality” or “objective morality.” Yet this is different from absolute truth (if we’re going to bother using definitions of any meaning).

Absolute morality is allegedly a fixed code of ethical behavior that did not originate with human beings. Rather, it was decreed by a god and we creatures are responsible for figuring out what it is — what is right and wrong — and living by it.

Naturally, no, nonreligious people of any political persuasion tend to not believe in absolute morality. They do not think there is any set right and wrong beyond what humans create for ourselves. They believe evolutionary biology and human interactions within unique societies change ideas of right and wrong over time, as evidenced by scientific and historical knowledge. With morality rooted in biological and societal influences, it is indeed purely relative, not absolute in any manner. We simply judge people’s actions as right or wrong on the basis that they do not align with our own, not because we have a guidebook from a deity. Morality is opinion-based. That is what I believe.

(And in doing so consider myself closer to the absolute truth on where morality comes from and how it functions than some! Do not think it clever to say, “Well, you don’t believe X is always wrong, so you don’t believe in absolute truth.” That is like saying, “You don’t believe winter to be the worst season, so you don’t believe in absolute truth.” Humans have different opinions, not different literal realities. Disbelieving in objective morality does not mean you disbelieve in objective truth. I think it is absolute truth that what’s right and wrong is not absolute: not objective, not set by God or independent of humanity.)

But one sees the muddle that conflating absolute truth and absolute morality creates in the articles quoted. A discourse on facts devolves for some bizarre reason into one on what’s ethical. So people believing ludicrously untrue things (“alternative facts”) is blamed on nonbelievers or more liberal people accepting that what’s ethical is subject to change and a matter of perspective. Do we see how absurd this is? How this is assigning a cause that is not necessarily true? Because I think what’s ethical is opinion-based I’m more vulnerable to thinking the precise size of the president’s inauguration crowd, whether the former president was born in Kenya, or whether God exists is opinion-based? Wouldn’t religious conservatives then be more immune to such rumors, rather than their main perpetrators? Might it be more sensible to suppose people believe ludicrously untrue things because they lack critical thinking skills, historical knowledge, or myriad other explanations?

At other times, however, “absolute truth” is simply used to mean God. “God is absolute truth, you don’t believe in God, therefore you don’t believe in absolute truth.” This is of course a definition that makes the term meaningless. “Reality” is really the only helpful definition of “absolute truth.” After all, anyone can simply make up a term for God and marvel that someone else doesn’t believe in it. “You don’t believe in absolute awesomeness? No wonder our society is falling apart.”

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